Hands of Stone

First Hit:  Having watched a few of Roberto Duran’s bouts, it was interesting to know more about the man who had “Hands of Stone”.

If you don’t like boxing, you probably won’t like this film as there are a fair number of boxing sequences in this film and it is not easy to watch people getting punched.

Duran (Edgar Ramirez) is first shown as a boy attempting to keep himself and his family fed. He runs the streets and steals from the Americans by taking guava's from the trees in the canal zone. Like most other Panamanians, he is resentful of U.S. presence in the canal zone.

Although the Panamanian and U.S. governments’ agreed to U.S. ownership of the canal zone, there is widespread resentment. This is important because when he fights in the U.S. he’s battling both the U.S. government's oppressive nature to Panamanians and his opponent.

In the case of the flamboyant USA Gold Medalist Sugar Ray Leonard (Usher Raymond) he created a massive dislike and even insulted his wife Juanita (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) as a part of his strategy to get under Leonard’s skin. Teaching him how to be a great boxer and to fully use his given talents is Ray Arcel (Robert De Niro). Because of previous entanglements with the mob who had a lot of control over boxing, he trained Duran for free.

This film explores Duran’s relationship with Felicidad Iglesias (Ana de Armas) who ended up marrying him. The film also explores his hunger to fight and what happens when he wins more than he ever thought he would. This film tells a story.

Ramirez was very good as Duran and made his journey believable. De Niro was fantastic as Roberto’s father figure as well as trainer. Raymond was strong as Ray Leonard. His movement around the ring and engaging personality were mirrors of the very public character he was playing.   Armas was wonderful as Duran’s tested wife. How she continued to show up to him was great. Smollett-Bell was good as Leonard's wife. John Turturro was good in a small role as the mob heavy putting pressure on Arcel. Ellen Barkin was very good as Stephanie Arcel, Ray’s wife. Pedro Perez did a wonderful job as Duran’s lifelong trainer. Ruben Blades is perfectly pushy as the money man behind Duran. Jonathan Jakubowicz wrote and directed this film. I thought that the script was very good and brought out an interesting story. The direction of the scenes was especially strong in the ring.

Overall:  If you like or interested in boxing in the late 1970s and early 1980s this is definitely worth seeing.

Brooklyn's Finest

First Hit: A very well acted film that doesn’t spin a Hollywood ending but lacks character development.

The main actors, Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke, Richard Gere, Wesley Snipes, and Ellen Barkin are all strong characters in this film.

This is a three story film focused around Gere, Cheadle and Hawke. Gere plays Eddie a cop who has just a week to go until he retires. He’s an alcoholic, divorced, lonely, doesn’t want to live nor does he care much about his fellow officers.

Cheadle is an undercover cop named Tango who is embedded into the Brooklyn drug scene. He did time in the same prison as Caz (Snipes) to build a trusting friendship and now works at the highest level of Caz’s drug business.

He's also being pressured by Agent Smith (Barkin). Hawke plays Sal a plain clothes drug cop who has 4 kids with twins on the way. His wife is ill from the mold in their cramped house and so he’s under self imposed pressure to get a hold of some cash to buy a new home.

Barkin plays Agent Smith a very hard nose woman demanding that Caz take a huge risk for her. Snipes plays Caz, a Brooklyn drug lord just out of prison and back in the neighborhood. He finds the drug trade risky and wonders about how to get out of the business with his paper (money). The three stories are; Eddie retiring alive, Hawke finding a way to divert drug money into his pocket for a new home, and Cheadle doing what he needs to do so that he can get a promotion, have a desk job and get his life back to something he understands.

The way the film begins there is a lot of suspense and identification of each person in their present situations, but what was missing was how each person got to their particular state of mind.

The film’s ending brings all three unrelated stories to a close in one location.

Cheadle was by far and away the most powerful force in the film. He was riveting. Snipes was very strong and I was happy to see him in a role where he wasn’t some super warrior. Gere was rather low key but effective as a cop who was just done with being a cop and was counting down the days. Hawke was good, but his character seemed a bit more scattered than made sense. Barkin, in what amounted to a two scene role, was very strong.

Overall: The film was entertaining. Because it bounced between three stories there never was an out breath to take it all in. I would have like less intense action and a little more character development, like how did Gere become so jaded?